A Hero to Hold

by Linda Castillo

  When her gaze met his, he saw vividly the terror in her eyes and felt the hairs at his nape stand on end. Something—or someone—had this woman spooked in a major way. “My name is John. I’m not going to hurt you. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe. Do you understand?”

  Her lids fluttered, her eyes rolling back. Simultaneously her knees buckled. John caught her an instant before she fell.

  “Terrific,” he muttered. Easing her to arm’s length, he drew her harness tight and clipped it to his, so that her limp body was flush against him. “We’re going up, sweetheart. Just relax and enjoy the ride.”

  She stirred. “I can’t…feel my hands,” she whispered. “They’re numb. I can’t hold on.”

  “You don’t have to hold on. I’ve got you.” He took her hands in his. Even through his thick gloves, he could feel the tremors wracking her body.

  “Don’t…let me go,” she said.

  Setting her palms against his chest, he put his arms around her shoulders. “I’m not going to let you go. I promise.”

  Dark, shimmering eyes met his. He’d intended to give her a reassuring smile to keep her calm, like he had with a hundred other subjects during a hundred other rescues. But the power behind her gaze stopped him cold. For a split second the flying snow and the roar of the wind faded until his focus narrowed to the feel of her against him, the smell of her hair and the frightened, striking eyes staring back at him.

  “Come on, Maitland, what are you doing? Picnicking down there?” Buzz’s voice crackled through his helmet communication gear with all the finesse of a chain saw. “Get it in gear!”

  Shaking off his reaction to the woman, John forced himself to take a mental step back and signaled for the other man to winch them up. An instant later, the rope drew taut. She gasped as they were jerked off their feet.

  “Damn winch operator has the mentality of a gorilla,” he grumbled, more to calm her than to complain because he knew there wasn’t a man alive who could operate a winch better than Buzz Malone.

  In only a few seconds, John’s thoughts strayed from the operation at hand to the woman pressed against him—and how that closeness was affecting his body. He tried to keep his thoughts on IV fluids, the possibility of frostbite and the radio call he would be making to Lake County Hospital, but the fact that this beautiful, frightened woman was pressed flush against him with her head on his chest was doing a number on his concentration. Her arms were around his waist, and she clung to him as if he were her lifeline. Even through the bulk of his flight suit, he was aware of her body. Small-boned. Soft. Curvy as a mountain back road—and undoubtedly just as dangerous. Her fragrant hair was loose and blowing in his face.

  He shouldn’t have acknowledged, even to himself, how good she felt wrapped around him like that—she was a trauma patient. He was an in-flight medic. She’d shoved a gun in his face just two minutes earlier, for crying out loud! God only knew what kind of a person she was.

  All that aside, even under the best of circumstances, John figured he was the last man on earth who had the right to indulge in this woman’s vulnerability.

  Steeling himself against his uncharacteristic reaction to her and physical sensations he knew better than to acknowledge, he forced his thoughts back to the operation and prepared to board the chopper. The ride up was swift and turbulent. The winds spun them like a top, but the woman didn’t make a sound. When a particularly strong gust sent them careening toward the chopper’s skid, he swiveled in midair and took the impact in the small of his back, determined to keep her from getting any more bruises.

  “About time you showed up.” Buzz Malone’s voice reached him over the roar of the chopper’s engines and rush of wind. “What do we have?”

  “Hypothermia. Possible frostbite.” Strong hands pulled them into the chopper. John looked down at the woman in his arms and felt a flutter of low-grade lust in his belly. Terrific. “You handled that like a pro,” he told her.

  Her gaze met his. Despite her earlier terror and the fact that she was seriously hypothermic and shivering uncontrollably, a smile touched the corners of her mouth. The smile reached him as no words could have. For a moment he couldn’t look away. Simultaneously something shifted deep in his chest, something new and uncomfortable—and uncharacteristic as hell. He wanted to say something cocky, something to let his teammates know he wasn’t the least bit affected by all that red hair and her pretty eyes, but for the first time in his life, his wit failed him. He felt like he’d just been punched right between the eyes. All he could do was stare back at her and pray his team members weren’t aware that he’d suddenly lost his power of speech.

  “Are you going to stand there all day, or are you going to let me unfasten her, so we can get an IV started?”

  John jerked at the tone of Buzz’s voice. Realizing belatedly that the woman was no longer supporting herself, that he was just standing there holding her, he unclipped her harness and relinquished her to the two waiting men.

  “What the hell, John? Did you get struck by lightning out there, or what?” Buzz asked.

  “Must have been that boulder Flyboy slammed me into,” John muttered. Not sure why he’d reacted so strongly to her, ready to write it off to his long-neglected male libido, he stepped back, determined to walk away and forget it.

  But John couldn’t make himself turn away. He damn well couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just stepped out onto thin ice and was about to plunge headlong into something that promised to take a lot more than just his breath.

  Her gaze never left him as Buzz and junior medic Pete Scully lifted her on the count of three and eased her onto the litter. Armed or not, she still had the most incredible eyes he’d ever seen. They were soft, expressive pools the color of expensive cognac. Rich with intelligence, they stared back at him with a moving mix of relief and gratitude—and the unmistakable realization that he’d saved her life.

  So what if that fed his ego? There wasn’t a search-and-rescue professional alive that didn’t like having it stoked. So he’d reacted to her. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman. John wasn’t any Romeo—not by a long shot. He knew all too well the dangers of getting involved and he wasn’t going to go off the deep end over a pair of incredible eyes and handfuls of silky red hair.

  Still, his reaction to her disturbed him—almost as much as the fact that she could very well have blown his head off.

  “Buzz.”

  Buzz tore the wrap from an IV needle. “What is it, Maitland?” the older man asked, never looking away from his work.

  “Uh…she had a gun.”

  Buzz swung an incredulous stare at him. “What?”

  “I said she had a gun—”

  “I heard you the first time.” Buzz looked down at the woman, his expression incredulous. “Where is it?”

  “She dropped it.”

  “Did she threaten you with it?”

  John had debated telling him the part where she’d pointed it at him. But Buzz was an ex-cop. John trusted his judgment. “She was terrified. Confused.”

  “Holy hell. She did, didn’t she?”

  “She thought I was someone else,” he said, hating it that he felt as if he’d somehow betrayed her. He didn’t owe her anything. For all he knew, she could be a criminal.

  “Who was she expecting, Jack the Ripper?”

  “She was scared out of her mind.”

  “Scared enough to pull a gun on a man trying to save her life?”

  John looked down at the pale woman lying on the litter. “I don’t think she planned to use it.”

  Buzz cursed, his face set and angry. “Open a line for me, Scully,” he snapped. “Let’s get some fluids into her.”

  Using the shears from the med kit, Buzz began cutting away her sweater and jeans. He hesitated an instant when the purple bruises on her arms and throat came into view. “Bloody hell.”

  “Criminy.” Scully’s jaw tightened, his gaze sweeping from the woman’s bruised body up
to Buzz.

  John stared at the dark bruises marring the flesh of her throat. Bruises that were the perfect imprint of a man’s fingers. Outrage burgeoned in his chest. Nausea seesawed in his gut as the memory of another woman taunted him. A woman with fear in her eyes and bruises on her body. The burn of shame sizzled through him followed by the sting of regret so sharp he winced.

  “Looks like maybe she was trying to protect herself,” Scully offered.

  The woman tried to sit up, her eyes glued to the scissors. “Please…don’t….”

  John knew Buzz had seen too much in his years as a cop and then as a medic to let the sight of her bruises faze him. “Try to relax, honey,” the team leader soothed. “We’re going to treat you for hypothermia. I’ve got to get these wet clothes off you. Hold still for me, now, all right?”

  Shivering uncontrollably, she lay back on the litter and squeezed her eyes shut. But John could clearly see that she wasn’t relaxed. Her hands were clenched into fists, her jaws clamped tight. Her entire body trembled violently. He wondered if it was from the cold—or the terror she’d suffered at the hands of whomever had put those bruises on her. The thought sickened him.

  As the beauty of her flesh came into view, John averted his gaze. He’d seen plenty of victims prepped for the emergency room over the years. Most times, that included cutting away the impediment of clothing so the team could assess whatever trauma they’d sustained. In this case, removing her wet clothes was imperative in treating hypothermia. Male or female, in all the years he’d been a medic, the procedure had never bothered him. The fact that it did with this rescue—and this particular woman—left him feeling acutely uneasy. A hell of a reaction for a man who’d devoted his life to the art of never getting involved.

  John had one staunch rule that he’d lived by since the day he walked out of the Philadelphia tenement at the age of seventeen and never looked back: Never get involved. Not with the people around him. Not with his patients. And never, ever with women. He’d broken that rule only once in the last thirteen years—and paid a terrible price. He wouldn’t do it again. So why was his heart pounding like a drum as he watched the tears well in her eyes and spill down her wind-burned cheeks?

  Reaching into the med kit, John withdrew an insulated blanket and snapped it open. Stepping over to the litter, he pulled the blanket up to her chin. “What’s with the tears, gorgeous?”

  Her eyes latched on to his, heavy-lidded with the effects of hypothermia. “I thought…I was…going to die.”

  “I forgot to mention this to you, but that wasn’t an option,” he said easily.

  She closed her eyes, but a smile played at the corners of her mouth. “You’re…bossy.”

  “It’s an ego thing, actually. I’m a hopeless egomaniac.”

  “I’m willing to overlook… You saved…my life.”

  A quick jab of alarm stabbed through John when she slurred the words. Reaching into the cabinet overhead, he broke open a radiant heat pack, gave it a quick twist and pressed it to her abdomen. “I don’t know if you realized this, Red, but I’m damn good at what I do.”

  “Modest…too. I should have…known.”

  Her voice was so low, John had to lean close to hear her.

  Buzz grimaced. “Her respiration is slow. She’s stopped shivering. Body temp’s at ninety-four. No pupil dilation yet, but I don’t want to risk cardial arrhythmia. Let’s go to active rewarming. Pete, get some oxygen going, will you?”

  Before realizing he was going to touch her, John pressed the backs of his fingers to her cheek to find her flesh cold to the touch. “Stay with me, Red. Come on. Keep your eyes open.”

  Pete peeled the wrap from another IV needle while Buzz swabbed the top of her hand with alcohol. She didn’t so much as wince when the needle slipped into her vein. Realizing both Buzz and Pete had the situation under control, John rose. He knew it was stupid, but he didn’t want to leave her.

  Shaking off the sentiment, he started for the VHF console to radio the hospital, but the sound of her voice stopped him cold. He turned back to her, found her eyes open and focused on him.

  “Thank you…for saving…my life,” she whispered.

  Feeling the back of his neck heat, he unfastened the top button of his flight suit. “You just hold up your end of the deal, Red.”

  “What’s…my end of the deal?”

  “I’ll settle for you staying awake until we get to County. Think you can handle that?”

  “You gonna sit there and make cow eyes at her all day, Maitland, or call County with our E.T.A.?”

  John frowned at his team leader, but for the second time that day, realized he didn’t have a comeback, witty or otherwise. He was going to hear about this later, he knew. John the Untouchable, going mush-brained over a female patient with a pretty face, tons of red hair—and trouble written all over her shapely body.

  Cursing under his breath, he moved over to the VHF radio, snatched up the mike and summoned Lake County Hospital. “This is RMSAR Eagle two niner. We’ve got a Jane Doe en route. Approximately twenty-seven years old. Possible closed head wound. Moderate hypothermia. Respiration slow. Body temp at ninety-four. No sign of cardial arrhythmia. Probable extremity frostbite with tissue damage. Numerous superficial injuries. We’ll need a CT.E.T.A. twelve minutes.”

  As dispatch radioed their reply and cleared them for landing, John risked a look at the auburn-haired beauty lying on the litter. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling so protective of her. She was going to be all right. Her confusion would ease as soon as they got her body temperature back to normal. Her fingers and toes might be frostbitten, but none of her injuries appeared to be life-threatening. Well, if you didn’t count the bruises on her throat.

  He’d get over this protective male nonsense by the time they reached the hospital. He looked at his watch. Eleven minutes and counting.

  Yeah, he’d be just fine in about eleven minutes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Glorious heat wrapped around her as if she’d been immersed in a warm bath. Relaxation spread through her body, rippling through muscle and tendon and radiating all the way to her bones. The lavender haze surrounding her brain cushioned the pain in her head and eased the throbbing ache in her hands and feet.

  She’d never floated before, but this wasn’t at all unpleasant. She was especially enjoying the dream about the man in the orange flight suit. The man with black, short-cropped hair, electric blue eyes and that devil-be-damned grin. The man who’d swooped down out of the sky and rescued her from…

  From what?

  Alarm quivered through her. The warmth she’d been feeling fled. In its place, something dark and menacing gripped her. A vague sense of terror crept over her like the shadow of some huge predator about to attack. She felt threatened, pursued, but her mind couldn’t seem to pinpoint by what—or whom.

  Content to return to the protective warmth of sleep—and her dream about the man with those vivid blue eyes—she sank back into the darkness and let the tide send her adrift.

  “Rise and shine, honey. You’ve got a visitor.”

  The jazzy female voice turned her peaceful netherworld on its ear. She opened her eyes. Light stabbed into her brain like a hot laser, bringing a wave of pain so powerful, her vision blurred. Withholding a groan, she raised her hand to shield her eyes, only to find her fingers encased in bandages. Blinking in confusion, she lowered her hand and tried to focus on the two blurred figures standing a few feet from her bed.

  “Where am I?” Her throat felt as if it had been through a cheese grater. Twice.

  “Lake County Hospital,” came the female voice. “You were brought in yesterday morning. How are you feeling?”

  She blinked to clear the fog from her brain. A silver-haired woman with kind eyes and chocolate-colored skin came into focus and smiled down at her. “I’m Cora, your nurse. Let me get your pulse while you’re awake.”

  A nurse, she thought. A look at the monitor beside her bed confirmed that she w
as in a hospital. A vague sense of confusion swirled in her head. She was in a hospital. A hospital?

  What the hell was she doing in a hospital?

  Before she could voice the question, the nurse took her hand and set her finger against her wrist. Only then did she remember her other visitor. She turned her head and squinted at the man standing just inside the door. The man she’d been dreaming about stared back at her, his gaze riveted to hers, his chiseled mouth pulled into a cocky grin.

  “Hi, Red. How’s tricks this morning?”

  Red? It took her befuddled mind a moment to realize he was talking to her. When she tried to answer, her voice grated like bad brakes. She cleared her throat and tried again. “The only thing doing tricks this morning is my brain.” She didn’t have the energy to mention her stomach was doing tricks, too—every time the smell of hospital bacon and eggs wafted into the room.

  “Sorry to hear that. You’re looking good.”

  “If how I feel is any indication as to how I look, I’d say you’re probably lying.”

  Even with her head pounding and her vision blurred, she couldn’t help but notice the power behind his smile. He’d traded the jumpsuit for a pair of faded jeans that hugged lean hips and muscular thighs. A flannel shirt opened to a black T-shirt with the word Medic emblazoned in white and stretched tightly over a wide, muscled chest. Laced-up hiking boots lent him the appearance of an outdoorsman. But it was his eyes that drew her gaze and held it so that she couldn’t look away. She’d never seen bluer eyes. They were high-altitude blue with a touch of ice, a trace of winter dusk—and a lot of male attitude. His short black hair was spiked military-style, but he didn’t look clean-cut. Not with the five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw or that dangerous grin and sculpted mouth. Even in her dazed state, it took her all of two seconds to realize he was every woman’s fantasy incarnate.